This invention pertains to the feeding and stacking of paper in a printer.
In word processors and similar types of printers it is often desirable to operate the processor in an automatic mode. In particular one would like to automatically feed a sheet of paper into the processor, initiate the typing and at the end of the typing, feed the completed sheet to a stacking mechanism. At present such facilities are available provided one couples a sheet feeder to the input of the word processor and couples a paper stacker to the output of the printer of the processor. Thus when the processor uses a conventional type roller mechanism the paper is fed from the sheet feeder into say the bottom of the roller and as the paper comes off the top of the roller it is delivered to a conveyor or belt arrangement onto a stacker. Such accessories and, particularly, the stacker portion have been found to be relatively complicated, expensive and unreliable.
Furthermore, there are times when the word processor is to be used in a non-automatic mode. In that case, the operator would normally load the sheet of paper into the bottom of the roller and manually remove the paper from the top of the roller. If the word processor is fitted with the above-mentioned feeder and stacker it is necessary to minimally move the stacker out of position to provide access for the operator to feed and remove the paper. The removal of the stacker quite often causes many complications, so that, in the end, in conventional offices the stacker is permanently removed and the automatic operation only takes place for the feeding part of a cycle.